Beast (25 page)

As Louise left, she happened to notice that the Arab men next door—her pasha's acolytes—were just leaving. When she spoke to them, they ignored her at first, then were clearly bothered, then alarmed, as if a fly had suddenly spoken to them.

Finally, patronizingly, the seeming head of these men answered her questions. His English had a singsong rhythm her pasha's hadn't. No, he said, no friend nor—he laughed haughtily at the suggestion—ruler or master of theirs had stayed next door to them. No Arab stayed there. "I would have known," the man insisted. He smugly maintained he knew every Arab on board, all four of them.

He even went so far as to walk the few feet down the hall to Charles's doorway. "No"—the fellow cast a glance inside the suite—"no one," he said. "No one stayed here. One of the luxury suites was empty the whole way across. This one." He jabbed a finger toward the room as he turned and put it behind him.

Over his shoulder, he said, "For the love of Allah, do you know how much these rooms cost, woman?

Too much. And for such a horrible trip, the ship line should pay us the sum. It is a miracle that anyone sleeps up here at the top of the ship."

One of the advantages of the Rosemont suite was that, if its occupant wished, he could disembark with the first setting of the gangplank. Charles did just this. He had wired his uncle and sister and cousins that he was coming and what all he needed. Of course, Uncle Tino knew much already, since he was the one who had juggled telegrams all month. Then at the crack of dawn, with morning just beginning to light up his beloved Mediterranean, Charles Harcourt hobbled off the ship with the aid of a sturdy cane. His uncle had to help him up into the carriage. It had been years since Charles's knee had been this bad.

The carriage took the groom-to-be to a nearby hotel whose facade faced Marseilles's Vieux-Port, putting the heart of the noisy, bustling city at his back. Charles was not fond of Marseilles. Though the second largest city in France and the country's chief commercial port, it had none of the charm usually-found in a cosmopolitan city. It was crowded, congested with traffic, and boisterous; no nice public buildings or sights. Its diversity of humanity—and it had this, for every culture in the world seemed represented on its streets—had, to Charles's mind, only one thing in common: an uncouth and aggressive venality reminiscent of, say, a Turkish street market. With one foot firmly in North Africa, this "gateway to the Orient" seemed, to him, barely French. Arriving in the city put him already on edge.

At the port hotel, after a bath (with new soap because his old suddenly smelled too distinguishing the scent of immediate detection), a shave (minus the
eau de toilette
he had used for nine years), and a light haircut (nothing that would look as though he had primped too much), Charles fretted further: over whether to wear a pleated shirt or a ruffled one (settling on a safe, plain one, starched to boxboard, with a high wing collar), over a new vest that buttoned one button too high to suit him, then over every necktie his uncle had brought him (eventually sending out his valet to buy all that was available in dark indigo).

Charles knew all this concern was disproportionate to the decisions themselves, but he couldn't find his balance. He was unaccustomed to feeling nervous. Unaccustomed to his conflicted state. He felt happy, elated, yet vulnerable almost beyond bearing. He wanted everything to be perfect for Louise.
He
wanted to be perfect for her, which gave every excited moment a pinch of dread.

Charles soothed his anxieties with what had always been one of his strongest salves to soul: ironically, his looks. Or rather his substantial power to master them by means of clever distraction.

His entire wardrobe, for instance, was custom-styled vanity: trousers that conformed to his well-made legs, no crease, tailored in the supplest suedes (today, goat-antelope, the same hide that when dressed with fish oil elsewhere, was called chamois); boots with an unusually nice line, tall, with a high, stiff arch that slid neatly into a stirrup—practical, yet beyond practical. They were of butter-soft, glossy black leather that rose to buckle snugly over a muscular calf.

The most dramatic of all his sartorial distractions, though, were Charles's frock coats. His height allowed for more length than usual, just as his broad back and shoulders filled out a coat more tailored than average. His coats were high-vented for movement, with deep, slanting pockets for effect: they flapped, to a one, about his calves. He crowned today's, a midnight silk velvet that moved unusually well, with a dove-gray, beaver-felt top hat, banded in blue-black, with a tightly curved brim.

Charles was quite the figure in this part of France. From Marseilles to the Italian border, from the Mediterranean up into the Alps, the Prince d'Harcourt was singularly regarded, a darkly dandyish one of a kind. He usually felt quite in control in this regard—in dominion—of his outlandish appearance.

Yet as he picked up his cane and gloves, he recognized a refinement on his anxiety. Fear. Quiet, stark fear—of the whims and impressions of an eighteen-year-old girl.

He so looked forward to seeing Louise, to his own sanctioned watching of her in the light. Yet what if she flinched at the sight of him in broad daylight? What if she couldn't meet his eyes—or eye, to be frankly accurate? Where would he hide his dismay?

Or, a new worry, what if she
did
find him pleasing, in some unspoken way: in exactly the same way she'd found him pleasing before. Would she recognize him immediately? Dear God.

Charles's thinking descended from here into a wretched spiral of logic, whereby he could not win no matter which way he turned.

If she liked him immediately, then recognition was a danger. He must explain his trick on her, in that case, and soon. But how? What would she do if she knew? Was his game on the ship really so terrible?

He should have told her already. The longer he waited, the worse. Yes, yes, he would foreshorten his torture by coming clean immediately.
My dear, I am your Charles of the ship. I only
pretended
to go
back to France and prepare for this wedding, because, well
…

No, no, he shouldn't dive into the subject of Pia and Roland.
I only
pretended
to be a man from
elsewhere. Why? Well, to play a little joke of which you were the butt
—

No, no, no, he didn't have to be that honest, not yet.
Just to see if you could be seduced, which, of
course, you could. By me, at least
—

This didn't seem like such a good explanation either. How to explain his motives, his actions in a favorable light?

He didn't know. And until he did, he'd best remain quiet.

When Charles made it down at last into the hotel lobby, the full retinue was assembled, everyone in their Sunday best. He was glad to see them: his uncle, an assortment of cousins and friends, a local monsignor, as well as some social and business connections here in the port. Most anticipated greeting the bride and her family, then traveling with the wedding party to Nice, where, joined by others, there would follow a long period of revelry. The Prince d'Harcourt was renowned for the entertainments that took place on his rather choice piece of property only a train ride east, a home with many and often-used guest rooms and space enough for a fairly spectacular celebration.

At the docks, the curious of Marseilles turned out as well. The
Concordia
was a novelty in this harbor—a rare American bid to compete with the successful German and English liners. Moreover, this novelty had brought a larger one: the bride of the only known prince this side of Monaco, of the only French prince this side of Paris. And, as archaic as prince-watching was, the French townsfolk appeared to be fascinated. And well informed.

A sketch of Louise had run in the morning's paper beside—more surprising still—the nuptial announcement. Charles had yet to speak to his uncle of how and why this had come about. Whatever the means, it brought the masses. Even people who were more or less strangers to Charles—the man from whom he bought his sausages when in town, the laundress who pressed his shirts when he was here on business, anyone who could claim an association showed up to shake his hand as he descended his carriage at the foot of the docks.

Charles walked into the crowd, leaning heavily on his cane and feeling consummately foolish—the groom, dapper, with flowers in his hand and an eight-piece oompah band behind him ready to strike up into American Sousa music. (What in God's name had Uncle Tino been thinking?) The second Charles saw the docks, the band, the crowd, he realized everything, simply everything, was too much. He himself felt over-washed, over-combed, overdressed—not to mention over-watched as the crowd continued to build into a damn throng—and hopelessly over-concerned with more worry for Louise than his brain could possibly hold.

Would she mind all the people around? Would she prefer to rest? Had she realized that she would live so much in the center of attention? Would she be hungry? Thirsty? Overwhelmed?

Yes, probably this, but he couldn't think what to do about it. He turned and waved the little musical band away, sending them back to the hotel where they could play later. Uncle Tino had informed him on the way back to the docks that, between now and then, he'd arranged "a little welcome" in the hotel's garden. Their train didn't leave till late tonight.

Meanwhile, Charles's clothes, all the individual niceties thai usually gave him so much pleasure and aplomb, felt radical one moment, then ineffectual the next in hiding the obvious. At all moments they felt notably outside the normal conceptions of chic. In addition to feeling suddenly less unique and more simply odd, he felt rumpled, despite countless checks that assured him he was well-pressed. For the dozenth time, he brushed a speck, a wrinkle from his dark frock coat. He removed his hat. He would carry it, as well as his gloves; his hands were making them damp. His entire body was in a sweat.

The ship began its regular disgorgement of first-class passengers, the wide gangplank slowly becoming crowded with women wearing flowers and flounce upon their heads, men in bowlers and top hats.

Charles caught sight of Harold and Isabel Vandermeer first.
Where was she
? he thought. Louise wasn't in front or behind her parents. Then he caught sight of her, and his heart stopped.

The crowd itself on the dock hushed slightly, then rose in scattered exclamations. That's the one; it must be;
la voilà
. In Charles's ears, this chatter became a single voice that traveled along the dock and back around through the gathered people like a line of falling dominoes,
oohs
tumbling
aahs
tumbling deep sighs. As he watched her, he was so proud he could hardly breathe; he was terrified.

Louise Vandermeer appeared out of the shadow of the great liner into the sunlight, walking among many others down the gangplank. Yet she may as well have been walking alone for the way she stood out—magical, iridescent, a single human miracle upon the eyes.

She wore no hat, carrying hers instead upside down with a cream-colored puppy inside it who peeked over plumes. This hat and puppy pressed into her swinging skirts with charming nonchalance, while her bare head was on full display, her blond hair shining like silver shot with bullion. Her skin was radiant, translucent; it glowed in the sun. As she walked, her limber movement swayed in rhythm to a three-masted yacht that bobbed indolently behind her. Her dress, a dazzling deep violet put fields of Provencal lavender to shame. Its cloth shimmered; it shuddered in the sun, its thin layers of silk awobble on the mysteries of its slightly belled understructure.

It was in public that Charles came to full understanding for the first time, full knowledge of just how blindingly gorgeous she was. For all that he had recognized of her loveliness on the ship, he had hidden the degree of it from himself. Louise Vandermeer's looks were mythic. She was perfection, the epitome of flawless, youthful beauty, unaware of its own mortality, uncaring, as gloriously bright-burning as a shooting star. The moment Charles saw her he realized what he knew already, what the blood in his veins had been telling him: This young woman was the embodiment of his worst fears—a mixture of merciless beauty and exultant, self-centered youth—while being what he inexplicably desired more than anything he could name.

Among the masses, the Vandermeers found him,

Harold Vandermeer clapping him on the back and babbling things at him in English that all at once sounded like Greek. (Good, good, Charles thought. He must remember to stick very strictly to French.

Louise would know the voice from the dark the instant he spoke to her in his Cambridge accent.) He couldn't swallow. He couldn't speak. He could only follow Louise with his eyes. (What kind of an impression could he be making? It hardly mattered. She didn't appear to see him.) The bride remained at the distant rear of the party. Meanwhile Isabel Vandermeer threw her arms about Charles's neck, dragging him down to plant a kiss on his cheek. There were American uncles and aunts and friends and cousins, legions of them. They all attempted French, even those who didn't speak the language. (Bless them; little did they know that they were going to have to keep this up.) Then at last she was there before him. Her eyes settled on his face. He shivered. Her eyes, these eyes he had seen so little of, were possibly the most beautiful part about her. They were the blue he remembered, but he dismissed their color quickly. There was something more to their appeal. Their deep lids folded in a continuous arch that echoed the thick line of her lashes, emphasizing the largeness of her eyes themselves. These generous lids didn't open completely, even looking up at him. They made her eyes look sleepy, smoky, innately sultry through no effort of her own. She was Bo Peep come to provocative life, a nursery rhyme grown up, her sheep sold off to pay for her new, cosmopolitan mien.

Charles melted on the spot, no more able to make sense of what was going on around him than a puddle of hot butter was able to talk. These fabulous eyes focused on him. He held his breath.